Marvel NOW! Reveals Gillen/Land IRON MAN Details

In an interview on Marvel.com Monday morning, Marvel officially revealed Kieron Gillen and Greg Land's next project, as part of the Marvel NOW! ongoing relaunch. Iron Man #1 will be hitting November 2012 with the new team taking on, as Gillen describes, "the iconic Avenger."
In the interview, Gillen talks about the challenges - and changes - in writing this book compared to his two current titles, Journey Into Mystery and Uncanny X-Men.

"This is actually the first solo hero I’ve ever written," Gillen told Marvel.com. "The Thor run
really doesn’t count because it was a bit strange; every book I’ve
written has been a sort of team book. Loki,
abstractly, is the lead [of JiM] but in practice he
isn’t and, on a larger scale, has gone 23 issues and hasn’t hit anybody.
That’s not a traditional Marvel super hero."
As for what he likes about Tony Stark, Gilen finds him to be an easy character to relate to, as he's constantly questioning morals, beliefs, and how he evaluates the world around him.
"The story will focus on him questioning things about himself and trying
to find out exactly how the universe ticks, what’s this all about and
why he does this anyway. It’s going to be one of the major themes of the
book going forward. For as long as I’m on the book it will be one of
the two major themes I’m working on, like on Uncanny X-Men [with] the
theme of power and the corruption thereof."
As for that second theme? It's all, or mostly, about the ladies.
"I’m going to explore Tony and his relationship with women. I’m
interested in Tony’s selection of women in everything, from his mom, to
Pepper, to the random people he’s sleeping with and everything that
relates to them. He’s a complicated guy and he does bad things
occasionally without thinking."
In contrast to the way he (mis)behaves with women, however, Gillen wants to send Tony Stark on a "Grail Knight" kind of arc. He'll be out in the world, and wearing the Iron Man armor quite a bit. In the first five issues of the relaunched title, in fact, Tony will be in different armor, and facing new villains in one-and-done stories connected more by motif than a strict multi-part storyline.
"Each issue will illuminate something about Tony and they’re all very
different," said Gillen. "Issue two is a lot like the Bruce Lee Kung-Fu Island story;
it’s like a joust, it’s all about the knight imagery, essentially going
to a tournament. Issue three is like a ninja story, Tony Stark trying to
be a full-on stealth master, issue four is a horror story and issue
five is something a little more romantic and scientific but I’m going to
keep that one under wraps."
Gillen respects Matt Fraction's long run with the character, and hopes to build on it while going in very different directions. He mentions in the interview everything from Lovecraft to tinkering to extravagant parties.
More on Iron Man, and the rest of Marvel NOW! coming soon here at Newsarama.
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